Angela
Elite member
- Messages
- 21,823
- Reaction score
- 12,329
- Points
- 113
- Ethnic group
- Italian
I can't imagine a setting where the ancient SHGs were not heavy consumers of fish though. Theres just not that much else here, and only the coast was icefree for a long time. Seems to me that the earliest cases of lightening skin seems to be about the time the snow and icefields go away. Might be a case of competing pressures. Getting extra vitamin D in addition to you diet is good, skin cancer bad. R
Exactly right. I had two bouts of terrible sun poisoning as a young woman, one on my face, with my face swelling hugely and covered with blisters. Once it was my arm. The first time was on a New Jersey beach because I fell asleep for about two hours lying on my stomach. The second time was in Mexico because I was holding on to a pole of an open jeep. Both times I had to have shots of steroids and stay indoors for three days. Even my eyes got burned in the summer sun of Florida, and I was told I had to wear wrap around sunglasses all the time.
I was told by numerous dermatologists that I had so little melanin that going sunbathing was absolutely out for me. Even high temperatures are a problem because my pores are apparently so small that I don't sweat enough and so my body gets overheated.
I did listen, either always hunting for shade or slathering myself with high level sunscreen, but the result was that I was diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency a number of times, requiring prescription strength pills for two months each time.
Yet still, I've had three precancerous lesions burned off. Thankfully, squamous cell, not melanoma, but I have to have full body scans every six months. My father, whose skin pigmentation I inherited, had numerous squamous cell cancers removed, one that was pretty serious. His entire family lived in the high Apennines for at least six hundred years. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. It's winter for six months a year there, but I think it's also pretty cloudy.
Black people have the same problem in the U.S. for the opposite reason. No matter how long they stay outdoors, they can't get enough Vitamin D because they have too much melanin.
Also, it is reported that Africans around the equator carry snps to produce LOTS of melanin, to protect them from the sun.
It's all one of those unfair things in life because I adore the sun and the sea, and hate cloudy and rainy climates.
Last edited: